The Poetry of Insomnia

Medical experts say that 30% to 50% of us occasionally suffer from insomnia, your intrepid poetry columnist included. Your anxiety kicks up, your heart starts to race a little bit, the sheets start to itch and...crap. Have you been there? Then comes the counting and the breathing exercises. I know, I know, there are drugs that help you with this stuff--Ambien and the one Abe Lincoln and the talking beaver shill for--but I won't take them. My girlfriend used them when she had to work an early morning shift, and I watched her brain turn to oatmeal a few times too many as she nodded off, speaking in tongues.

So what are the nocturnal to do? As the poet Gregory Orr wrote in his poem "Insomnia Song," you can always "haul anchor" and "pick up a book and read all night." It's my preferred method of coping with sleeplessness. I find that reading Chaucer works well. Nothing against him as a poet, but he has those lulling rhythms and long passages to get lost in. One of the less exciting Shakespeare plays would probably work just as well. Try Henry IV, Part II, wherein the King says:

How many thousand of my poorest subjects

Are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O gentle sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?

It's nice during those late and lonely hours to know you've got some company. And you do have company. Wherever in the world your bedside lamp is lit, there surely are a dozen poets--tortured souls that we are--nearby, awake and brooding. The proof is in Lisa Russ Spaar's excellent anthology of insomnia-inspired poetry Acquainted With the Night (from Columbia University Press) from which I've pulled some of my favorite sleepless poems.

The great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin nails it for me in his "Lines Written at Night During Insomnia" (Translated by D.M. Thomas):

I can't sleep; no light burns;

All round, darkness, irksome sleep.
Only the monotonous
Ticking of the clock,
The old wives chatter of fate,
Trembling of the sleeping night,
Mouse-like scurrying of life...
Why do you disturb me?
What do you mean tedious whispers?
Is it the day I have wasted
Reproaching me or murmuring?
What do you want from me?
Are you calling me or prophesying?
I want to understand you,
I seek a meaning in you...

It's that desire to find meaning that's so haunting (and aggravating) to the sleepless: the thoughts keeping you awake; the knot of anxieties. Dana Gioia expounds on this idea in this excerpt from "Insomnia":

But now you must listen to the things you own,

all that you've worked for these past few years,
the murmur of property, of things in disrepair,
the moving parts about to come undone,
and twisting in the sheets remember all
the faces you could not bring yourself to love.

How many voices have escaped you until now,
the venting furnace, the floorboards underfoot,
the steady accusations of the clock
numbering the minutes no one will mark.
The terrible clarity this moment brings,
the useless insight, the unbroken dark.

I'm particularly drawn to Gioia's choice of "the useless insight," since the worries that keep me up at night, and the epiphanies that follow them, rarely matter in the morning. No doubt it's far better, if you're able, to stop worrying and embrace those late hours. I'm envious of Whitman, who wrote in "A Clear Midnight":

This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,

Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson
done,Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the
themes thou lovest best, Night, sleep, death and the stars.

Comments

[joebaggadonuts]

Exercise until you are exhausted. People will think you are nuts if they see you, but it works. In TCM they would say you have excess Yang Chi you need to burn off.

[BlankVerse]

insomnia...
the traffic signal changes
for nobody

-gK

[Paintingislife]

Close your eyes and picture a big LED display with the number 200. Imagine the LED is counting down one digit at a time. Most of the time I don't get past the 50s before falling asleep.

I'm not sure but this may keep both sides of the brain (left-visual, right-analytical?) distracted until sleep comes.

[Norge]

Just read a dull book will put some to sleep or listen to a bushed speech about the mission acomplished. Sleep will be acomplished.

Rolf Krogsæther

[clsmithj]

I believe the reason people have insomnia because they're forcing themselves to go to sleep.

If your body is not sleepy, its just not sleepy so stay up and go do something, go watch a DVD or the late night news, your body will eventually tire out.

Or better yet, start typing up an essay, I guarantee after you get through racking your head with that you will be exhausted.

[brooklyncitizen]

Are there psycological reasons for not sleeping? other than anxiety?

Some people seem to be sleepers...bnaturally can sleep, take naps etc.Sleep is the one area in my health regime that can stand some improvement; continuous sleep eludes me, more often than not.

[carolinacowboyinla]

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We buy ours at www.thefactsaboutmonavie.com

Check out the website to get more info and contact her with any questions.

[insiderinfo]

or just try melatonin tablets from the health food store. try one milligram at a time to see how much you need to conk you out. I took Ambien for years until a new doctor told me to stop and said I should stick to melatonin. For a long time I took 3 mg. pills and now I take 2 of those. Works like a charm. But you have to figure out yourself how much you need so you don't feel funny the next day. Highly recommend.

[lgreene]

FYI: I have read that some berries, especially cherry I think, have a plant form of melatonin in them. That may explain why you both sleep better after drinking your juice. I guess you could google it or something to find out!

[fumes]

say john, try my mantra ''don't sleep'' to interrupt those streaming thoughts that plague us all. ''don't'' being one of the most attention getting words we have in the english language always showcases the word that follows it, you know, like ''don't hit it in that sand trap'' or ''don't hit it in that effin lake again you idiot!'' and then you invariably do! just say ''don't sleep'' often enough to talk over yourself and the next thing you know is morning! sweet dreams bud.
oh, and for that prostatic hyperplasia if you're old enough, try saw palmetto, works great.

[davidkahne]

I looked for the poem online and found some that didn't have "death" in the last sentence... http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/waltwhitman/13420 and http://www.bartleby.com/142/283.html for example. Which is the real version? Makes a big difference : )